Being an Excellent Die-er

Excellence honors God. This is the premise upon which so much of our ministry is based.

Excellence honors God.

It sounds enticing and amazing--giving us something for which to strive, a standard by which to judge our efforts, a goal that is to be ever before us. Excellence.

If we're excellent at our ministries, we're being good pictures and reflections of the excellent life with God. If we're excellent in our programs, we'll be attractive enough to instill religious interest in those who aren't religious. If we're excellent in our music, if we're excellent in our childrens' ministry, if we're excellent in student ministries, if we're excellent in our small groups, if we're... well... just plain excellent all the way around, we'll be... excellent. And then we can breathe a big sigh of relief because we did our job to the best of our ability, and that's what God wants of us, and what he's charged us with doing.

There's even some scriptural support for this philosophy. Not much... but some. Probably one of the most referred to passages in support of the "excellence philosophy" is Colossians 3:23-24, which says, "Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for men, 24 since you know that you will receive an inheritance from the Lord as a reward. It is the Lord Christ you are serving." Of course, if you back up one verse to verse 22, you will see that Paul is writing to slaves--literal slaves--and talking to them about how they are to serve their masters. True, there are principles in this passage that are applicable to us, but at the very least, the different contexts should caution us as we interpret. Working with one's whole heart for absolutely no recognition and little if any reward only for the sake of the soul of one's master who may or may not be treating you as a person is a little different than trying to make a worship service "cool."

In actuality, this verse highlights the chink in the armor of the excellence philosophy, which has now become one of the core doctrines of almost any growing church in America. The chink in the armor of the excellence philosophy rests on this question concerning the slaves to whom Paul is writing: At what must the slave be excellent, first and foremost? One would be tempted to say, "Well, the slave must be excellent at whatever the master had assigned him or her. Perhaps it was a clean house, or a growing crop, or well-prepared meals. As the slave becomes more and more excellent at these tasks, he or she will build credibility with the master, and perhaps the master will see the reason for the slave's excellence." But while this is certainly descriptive of the first thing that can be seen by the eyes--namely, excellence at remedial tasks--it completely misses where the excellence of the slave rests, first and foremost.

Think about the slave's condition. You get no credit for what you do, because it is merely your obligation. That is your economy. What's your five year plan? Doing the same tasks you did today. What are your measurable goals that will tell you if you're getting to where you want to be? Well, if you didn't get beat today, or your wife didn't get raped, or your child only had to work 12 hours and not 16, then it was a pretty good day.

Perhaps the light is starting to flicker on for some of us. In a condition like that, we can start to see that the slave has to be excellent at something else first before he or she can even possibly be motivated to do the tasks with his or her "whole heart."

In what must the slave first and foremost be excellent? It seems to be that the slave must be truly excellent at dying to himself, taking up his cross, and following Christ before he can be motivated to be excellent at his duties (Matt. 20:21-28 & Mk. 10:35-45; Lk. 17:5-10). This is the "transferrable principle" for our ministries here and now.

If the slave was not first excellent at dying to himself, taking up the cross of Christ, and obediently following him into what is a difficult, harsh, and unjust circumstance, his work would be all for nothing, for it would have absolutely no eternal value--either for him, or for his master. If all he did was read Paul's words in Colossians and try hard to do well "for Jesus," he would last only for a short time, for he would soon remember that his master shouldn't treat him like he does, that his work is worth fare more than just subsistence, and that his situation is comparatively unjust to most of his contemporaries. He would soon discover that he was, yet again, unable to fulfill this new "law." And when he quit trying so hard to do well "for Jesus," he would feel like he not only failed his master, but failed his Savior as well.

But this is not the life of the Christian, and this is not the obligation that Paul seeks to level upon his readers. The life of the Christian is not one of merely striving for excellence--at least not at its truest, purest, and basest of levels. The life of the Christian continually flows from death--first from the death of Jesus as an atoning sacrifice for our sin and reconciliation with our Father, then from our death to ourselves as we repent of our striving apart from Christ and submit to living in and by him. In a very real and true sense, while we are living this life here on earth, we wake up to die every day, and in dying, we find life. We must become excellent "die-ers" before we even consider becoming excellent at anything else.

What would our minstries, our programs, our philosophies, our plans, and our goals look like if our standard for success and our measure for excellence was how well we are dying to ourselves and living in Christ?